# Posted 6:19 AM by Anonymous  

THERE IS A LAND where at least several hundred, but more likely a few thousand, Muslims were recently butchered. Most were burned alive – even parents in front of their children. The killing, while performed by mobs, was not exactly a private operation: the state police looked the other way as anti-Muslim bigots tore their way through the streets, and might even have assisted the mobs in pinpointing Muslim targets. The statesman in charge is known to have circulated a memo assessing the political gains to be derived from the carnage. And 130,000 refugees, most of them Muslims, were forced into refugee camps in the midst of their own war-torn city, many of them lacking basic amenities like water, sanitation and food.

This land is a birthplace of ancient civilization, split between feuding faiths. Not Israel: India.

It is hard to say which is more puzzling – the silence from the Arab world or from the United States. On the face of it, you would think this is just the kind of thing the Arabs have been complaining about for ages – a systematic, state-sponsored, almost genocidal campaign against Muslims, all in the name of religion. But it hasn’t seemed the draw the level of outrage that Israel’s activities always spark. Then again, what’s the fun in mourning a few hundred seared Muslims when there are no Jews to blame?

Perhaps more galling is the American response – which, to be precise, is the absence of a response. A State Department spokesman bravely ventured that India is “a multiethnic secular nation, accepting of all religions,” and that the U.S. favored (drum roll, please) a “peaceful resolution to their differences.”

It’s a bit late for that. The peace was shattered long ago. What remains to be seen is whether anyone takes a principled stand against the massacre. It is especially important that America take a stand. The U.S. calls itself a friend of Muslims everywhere; it has no reason not to be. Indeed, its last 4 wars – in the Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan – have been waged in defense of Muslims. But there remains a perception problem in the Islamic world, which we now know all too well. When one is wrapping up a war against one Muslim nation (Afghanistan), formulating plans to invade another (Iraq), and standing steadfastly behind the archnemesis of the pan-Islamic world (Israel) – even if, as in all the above cases, for the right reasons – one should exploit any opportunity to prove that American foreign policy is not directed exclusively toward sabotaging Allah.

For the Arabs and Americans alike, it’s a problem of foggy lenses, of seeing only what one wants to see. Arabs cannot fathom Muslim victims without Jewish perpetrators. And Americans these days cannot fathom Muslim victims period.
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